COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 295D-1

Please note that this description is from a previous semester. We will update when we have the information.

COURSE TITLE: New Venture Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Randy Haykin (a.k.a. "Professor R")

E-MAIL ADDRESS: haykin@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: bSpace

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Thursdays, 6:00PM to 9:30PM

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum

CLASS FORMAT: Mixture of cases, readings, lectures, guest speakers and real-time company illustration/interaction.

REQUIRED READINGS: There will be a stream of articles, cases and web reading required for class participation.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Class participation, in-class presentations, several individual and/or team assignments, and a final exam. A team project to create a complete financial strategy will be offered in lieu of the final exam.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
This course gives you a better understanding how to finance and fund their start-up or high-growth company. The course is focused on students who expect to be a manager or CEO of a start-up in the not-too-distant future, and want to fully understand the issues, challenges and tools for managing a company through strategic planning, financial analysis, business model creation, funding alternatives, fund raising, alternative financing, and exit strategy.    While the course will be valuable for the student who wants to pursue a career in private equity or venture capital, the course is principally aimed at the present/future entrepreneur...and many class discussions with visitors and the instructor will address practical every-day matters of getting a company funded.

The course is developed by Professor Randy Haykin, who currently runs a $200M venture fund (www.outlookventures.com) and is also an entrepreneur and active "mentor capitalist" (www.haykin.net ).  Invited guest speakers are relevant experts including authors, venture capitalists, angel, CEOs, service providers (lawyers, investment bankers, etc) active in today's market.  

In this course, we help students examine the various options that a company has for financing at all stages of its life-cycle  from seed-stage to later-stage and will explore the options that companies have for exit (both M&A and IPO).  The course will blend a mixture of cases, readings and speakers to address the full range of financing options including angel, venture capital, debt financing, corporate/strategic investment and public markets. The course will arm students with a process for evaluating future company situations and a set of tools for evaluating and setting a plan of action to fund a company.

A unique feature of this class is the "real-time company" -  the CEO from a start-up company seeking funding will join students throughout the course.  Members of the class will have the opportunity to meet with and get to know the team of this real-time company over the course of the semester and utilize the lessons learned from each segment of this class on the real-time company. The semester typically culminates with a Board-room company presentation to actual venture capitalists - and students get to sit in on the presentation and learn from it. This provides real-time, hands-on learning, which students in this class in the past have found rewarding, intellectually stimulating and fun.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF INSTRUCTOR:
Randy Haykin (a.k.a "Professor R") has been involved in technology investment and finance for nearly 30 years as an entrepreneur, start-up team member, angel investor and venture capitalist.  He has taught classes in Finance and Marketing at Brown University, Stanford, Harvard Business School, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

After leaving Brown University (BA) and Harvard (MBA), Professor R worked at Apple Computer in 1988.  During his tenure at Apple, he held various sales and marketing management roles and eventually created the Apple New Media Developer program, a global program for internet and multimedia developers on the Macintosh.  Professor R was also Director of Business Development at the Paramount Media Kitchen and helped fund and launch three businesses while at Viacom/Paramount.  In 1995, he joined the start-up team at Yahoo! and became the company's first VP Marketing and Sales. Following Yahoo!'s successful IPO, Randy formed Interactive Minds, a venture "catalyst".  Some of Interactive Minds clients included Overture, AOL Greenhouse and Netchannel.

In 1997, Professor R co-founded Outlook Ventures (www.outlookventures.com) and has served as its Managing Director for over thirteen years, three funds, and more than 35 software companies in the enterprise, consumer and infrastructure arenas.

He philanthropic work includes board roles with the American Cancer Society and Opportunity International and he is an active musician (www.vihchorus.org).   Professor R lives in Pleasanton with his wife and three daughters.